The Five Articles Oath was the basis for political, social and economic modernisation of Japan. Prior to the Five Articles, Japan had been ruled by the Tokugawa Shogunate which repudiated technological change, and had been largely, though not perfectly, isolationist.

Article I

Deliberative assemblies shall be widely established and all matters decided by public discussion.

Article II

All classes, high and low, shall unite in vigourously carrying out the affairs of the state.

Article III

The common people, no less than the civil and military officials, shall each be allowed to pursue his own calling so that there may be no discontent.

Article IV

Evil customs of the past shall be broken off and everything based upon the just laws of nature.

Article V

Knowledge shall be sought through the world so as to strengthen the foundations of imperial rule.

The Shogunate form of government had largely sidelined the political power of the emperor who was rabidly isolationist. Many of the Shogunate leaders of the early 19thC had moved between isolationist policies and opening up Japan to western science and production.

But each liberalisation would be met with the next leader reforming toward a peasant and yeomanry economy which has definite limits of growth. The added problem was this form of social organisation, and the arbitrary application of power from the Shogunate government, steeped as it was in social inequality, meant that peasant riots were common.

The European powers were also trying to open Japan to trade in the same way that Britain opened up China to the globalising economy - through force. And this threat of force ultimately came through America and Admiral Perry.

There were other internal political dynamics at work. The emperor and conservative supporters were getting stronger; the Satsuma and Choshu clans ultimately came to a coalition agreement; modernisation had been slowly chipping away at Japan's entwined social and political structures; and the Tokugawa Shogunate was unable to stop the "imperial restoration".

The coal powered cruisers and battleships of America and Europe, as well as the large artillery guns the ships carried also impressed the Japanese into understanding their military organisations and methods were obsolete.

The articles were produced by the samurai of the Satsuma and Choshu clans after they had taken the palace over from the Tokugawa, but before all Tokugawan resistance had been quelled.

The articles became statements of principle as to how the new government would govern. W. Scott Morten argues that the first article, while appearing to proclaim democracy, was mainly to keep the other clans happy, thinking they would have a say in the new government. He notes once the new government established itself, it stopped conferring.

The second and third statements were announcements that feudalism would be abolished and social mobility would be based on merit, not class.

The fourth statement is a repudiation of the Tokugawa Shogunate, and everything it had done. While the fifth was an embrace of modernisation, the scientific method and the economic theories of the enlightenment.